W&L Remembers: President Jimmy Carter The former president, who died Dec. 29, interacted with the Washington and Lee University community on multiple occasions.
As the nation remembers the life and legacy of former president and founder of the Carter Center, Jimmy Carter, Washington and Lee University remembers his engagement with campus across the decades.
After a series of hospital stays within the last few years, Carter decided to forgo additional medical intervention and instead spend time at home with his family. He entered hospice care in February 2023 at the home he shared with his late wife, Rosalyn, who died in November 2023. He died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Dec. 29, 2024. He was 100.
Carter gave the keynote address at the 1972 Mock Convention. At that time, he was serving as the governor of Georgia. He was later selected as the predictive nominee for the Democratic Party during the 1976 Mock Convention and went on to serve as the 39th president of the United States from 1977-1981. The convention also successfully predicted that Walter Mondale would be Carter’s running mate, marking the first time the convention had correctly chosen the vice presidential nominee. A signed transcript of Carter’s remarks to the convention, which were made via telephone, is housed in Washington and Lee’s Special Collections.
In 1992, Carter returned to Washington and Lee’s campus to give a talk, a visit owed in large part to Carter’s deputy chief of staff, Landon Butler ’63. Butler served the Carter administration from 1977-1981 and was honored by Washington and Lee’s Alumni Association with a 2023 Five-Star Distinguished Alumni Award. Carter also stopped by a classroom during his visit, specifically requesting to speak with a small group of students, whom he encouraged to ask questions about topics ranging from his presidency to his background in peanut farming.
Carter’s speech on W&L’s campus was introduced by Bob Strong, William Lyne Wilson Professor in Political Economy. Strong had previously served as a research associate and assistant director of the Carter Presidency Project from 1981-82 and later published a book titled “Working in the World: Jimmy Carter and the Making of American Foreign Policy” in 2000. In his introduction, Strong compared Carter to the university’s namesake president, George Washington — and received a wry reply from Carter as he thanked Strong for his remarks.
In a 2015 essay marking the occasion of Carter’s 91st birthday, Strong reflected on the encounter and recalled that in his introductory remarks, he said both Washington and Carter “were Southerners, farmers and military men known for their integrity. Both were fiscal conservatives and reluctant partisans who had problems with Islamic hostage-takers. Carter politely chided me for an inappropriate introduction and said that none of today’s politicians should be compared to our Founding Father. ‘Besides,’ President Carter said, ‘Washington got re-elected.’”
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